Love to see so many writers here on the forums, its awesome ^^
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Love to see so many writers here on the forums, its awesome ^^
Just five days left to get your nominations in and there's still no nominations for Best Expansion Fic, Best Newcomer and Best Reviewer! Particularly disappointed about those last two - I thought we were a friendlier forum than that?
Nominate here: http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/f227/writers-workshop-autumn-awards-2012-nominations-thread-138671/
I think the relative inactivity in the awards is due to the Writer's Workshop in general not having much new blood or many new quality fanfictions. Not that I'm insulting the community, but it does feel like the fanfictions are pretty much relatively the same thing as before and there haven't been new many additions to section. Also one of the problems I've noticed is many don't seem to care too bad about improving their stories and writing skills. :/ This isn't directed at anyone but in general, but it seems like many are more concerned with glory than becoming better fanfic authors. Honestly, when it comes to awards, don't you all want to be nominated because your fics are some of the best on the site, rather than because there aren't that many things to nominate? I think the section should encourage giving more high-quality reviews, no I don't mean "this fic is good, I love the plot-line". I mean pointing out dialogue, wording, plot-line, plot-holes, pacing, etc and being a bit more "honest", which by that I mean "not sugar-coated review". If the writer truly does take these things into consideration and to the heart it really will help their writing in the long run.
I think the best way to make our little WW section more popular is by improving our current community, as well as maybe a Bulba New Article about the awards? Also by stepping up and truly improving our works. For example @Legacy imo has improved a great deal as a writer and is probably one of the cream of the crop of the Writer's Workshop because he truly strives to improve his stories and better the community. If we all took a tip from his book for example, we could gain more and more members and readers here. Just my thought.
Well I'm new and I guess I have to start somewhere.
Mediocre for the win. :D
I was doing that for two years AND with ridiculous attention to detail (recently I used trigonometry as a logic/sanity check on something) and I got around to finally starting, writing, and posting the stuff I had. :D Now granted, that entailed getting the starting parts nailed down firmly, but still! Got it rolling. Once you get by the initial inertia, it's way easier to keep it in motion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caitlin
What the hell are you talking about? There's plenty of new stuff around. People just gotta get reading, take that dive into something new, that's all. If people don't read or comment - make any comment - how do you expect any progress at all to be made on either end? You can't always demand the top level from everyone, either. Help them out wherever you can, but don't obsess over it. That can make reading unfun, which means no reading and no progress and no award-giving.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gotpika
And just because someone has to take that shot, frequency of updating is another very important thing to consider. ;)
I do think the Bulbanews thing is a good idea, though not necessarily limited to the awards. It could even be as a thing for basically the whole community of stuffs and the such.
I think there is an element of truth to this, but I don't think that's unusual: this has always been the case. I'm coming up to my fourth anniversary of being a writer here, and, let's just say, this is a metric that I've been hearing for a very long time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gotpika
Also, though, improving isn't easy. Having someone point out where you're going wrong once isn't enough to stop you from making those mistakes ever again. Improvement is a long and hard road that takes more than just the right attitude. I think you are being a little unfair and impatient to people. Admittedly, some people aren't interested in improving so much as they are interested in glory, you're right, but that's not true of anywhere near everyone.
I certainly agree with this, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean. If by "the section" you mean the staff of the Writer's Workshop, then I agree, and this is something we're already trying to do. On a personal level, I try to give in depth reviews when I have time and I know Legacy and some others do too. On a management level, we try our best: the Review Exchange, which I urge you all to use (find it in the Writer's Block) encourages people to write down what depth of review they are willing to give and what depth of review they are looking for. If you have any specific suggestions of how we could do a better job of handling this, I would love to hear them.Quote:
I think the section should encourage giving more high-quality reviews, no I don't mean "this fic is good, I love the plot-line". I mean pointing out dialogue, wording, plot-line, plot-holes, pacing, etc and being a bit more "honest", which by that I mean "not sugar-coated review". If the writer truly does take these things into consideration and to the heart it really will help their writing in the long run.
If you mean that individuals should do encourage it, then I agree with that too. At the same time, however, I don't think people should be discouraged from leaving reviews that say "Great job, keep it up" and things like that. That can be very encouraging if you don't have anything more substantial to say, and can, in some cases, be the difference between a fic being continued or not.
This is something we've done in the past, but we stopped under the Rowling administration because we didn't want to be spamming Bulbanews with our Awards which happen several times a year when it's supposed to be primarily about reporting news about Pokemon rather than about Bulbagarden itself. If there's a strong feeling this is something that should be brought back, I could discuss it with the BN staff, but I make no promises. I'm also dubious as to whether this will actually improve activity in the Awards. In my mind, reduced activity in the Awards is not to do with writers but with readers. I've seen several fics that I think are deserving of nomination at least, including a couple in the Expansion category which has gotten no attention so far. (I generally don't nominate, though, since I play a major role in judging and organisation of the Awards and I feel it would be a bit of a conflict of interests.)Quote:
I think the best way to make our little WW section more popular is by improving our current community, as well as maybe a Bulba New Article about the awards?
Well I certainly agree with this. Even before Legacy was a WW moderator he put a huge amount of effort into bettering the community. Did you know that the Fic of the Month was a project that he started by himself before he was a mod, just like the Writer's Academy was? He is also someone who's always put a lot of effort into reading people's stories. I agree that if more people strived to be more like Legacy that the WW would quickly become a frankly excellent place, but if you want to make a change, you should start with the man in the mirror.Quote:
Also by stepping up and truly improving our works. For example @Legacy imo has improved a great deal as a writer and is probably one of the cream of the crop of the Writer's Workshop because he truly strives to improve his stories and better the community. If we all took a tip from his book for example, we could gain more and more members and readers here. Just my thought.
Yeah, I can't think of a single story I've posted (and left totally unfinished) that Legacy hasn't commented on.
Huh. That kinda makes me feel guilty.
sigh
i have a fucking d in creative writing at school
i suck at everything i just
Don't beat yourself up about it. It's easy to get lower grades than you deserve at something like creative writing. Most of the greatest writers of all time did, in fact.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lady Lucifer
this^Quote:
Originally Posted by G-Mama
Can't be a real artist until you're a misunderstood artist! ;)
Art and creative writing teachers generally have no idea what art really is and follow rule books... which also have no idea what art and writing are about.
Anyways, this is a strange request, but I'm looking for feedback on something. It's been a few days now and I've only gotten about a whopping one opinion on it, so I'll try here. I'm doing some (extremely) basic design schematics for a Star Trek ship and I've got a top down view done. However, I've had trouble deciding which to go for in terms of the red section of the ship:
I'm disliking the rounded "mushroom" look, but the jagged look also doesn't feel right. Opinions?
@Caitlin;
Out of those two, I prefer the left. The only change I could suggest is to have the red bit go in from its widest point to the top point at a completely even rate giving it a much pointier look, but one that looks a bit better (imo) than the second image. Don't know if that made sense or you'd like that idea, but that's just my thoughts.
Also EVERYONE!!!
Nominations for the Awards close tomorrow, so if you've been sitting on your nominations and waiting, make sure you get them in! Since there hasn't been much activity this time, I will probably do some nominations myself for the first time since I have been Section Head. There are people who I know deserve to be nominated but haven't been. Quite disappointing, I am usually very pleased when I see how eager to congratulate each other this community is. It's a shame to see that not be the case this time round. I hope it is just to do with this being the start of the school/university year for a lot of people and thus a difficult time for reading. I really hope that the January 2013 Awards are a different story.
ACK! I've really lost track of time. I'm going to be doing some serious reading, reviewing, and nominating tonight.
Hangover fun.
Time to get a story going.
Ooh, SQUEE, one of my characters got nominated in the awards! I SO never expected that! :D
And it's Kelli from my Zelda fic no less. Y'all can be sure I'll never discontinue that story here. :)
Unfortunately, it may be awhile before the next chapter is out. Dungeon chapters are more difficult than the others, and I have few ideas so far for the Sun Temple as of now, so... >_<
